Being Positive

Happiness is:

*warm, comfortable cars that get us to my parent's house and back in one weekend
*dinner at Teppanyaki after shopping at Costco
*a late night movie with my mom (and yes, that movie WAS Breaking Dawn Part II. Pleasantly surpirsed - we both really enjoyed it!)

*helping decorate Nana and Papa's 20-foot Christmas tree and house for the holidays while watching Scrooge (the best Christmas movie ever)

*Christmas shopping at Sugarhouse without the kids - I'm almost done!

*going to see Les Miserables. Sure it was just a high school production, but our friends Taylon and Tasha (Enjolras and Fantine) from Festival team were in it, and it was the school production so it's a cleaner version, which made me feel better about taking my kids. Plus the tickets only cost $6 as opposed to the $100 they charge at Salt Lake's Capitol Theater when the traveling company comes around. The Valjean was inspiring, the actors were passionate, my kids were mesmerized (even 5 year old Spence sat still the entire time!) and we loved every minute of it. Maggie mouthed all of Eponine's lines, and Spence kept on asking me when Bring Him Home was going to be sung. Okay, so someday I really need to take them to see the real thing!
*Eating BYU Creamery Ice cream (graham canyon and Coconut Joy.... sigh! so good!) after the play and all 3 kids falling asleep on the way home.

What a couple of great days.

Lots of happiness this weekend!

Gordon B. Hinckley, a past president of my Church, said, “Things work out, it isn't as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out, don't worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. If we will put our trust in him, if we will pray to him, if we will live worthy of his blessings, he will hear our prayers.”

Borrowed from a friend's blog because I still am wallowing a little.

Post-Mortem for the Country I Knew and Loved

So this is how I feel today:

Only in my heart, it's a little more black than this picture is. Axe the blue light, make it a eerie dark shade of gray. There's not a lot of light in my heart right now.

Obama was re-elected yesterday. Though it was a close election, I was still surprised and shocked. I took it easy on Facebook, and merely posted the following:

"Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." -Viktor E. Frankl

I DO believe the above. But this blog is Mindy's Place where I get to vent and purge and gripe. If you choose to read this post, you get to know how I really feel.

To help me mourn and then move on, here are my biggest reasons for heartbreak right now:

1. This was a watershed election, determining the direction our country will take from this point out. I've thought that before, especially after 9/11. But I never thought I'd see the day when we were voting to change the very nature of our national character. We've become a nation of entitled, lazy whiners who dream of socialism, needs FEMA to come hold our hands after a big storm, and looks on hard-working, successful people as The Enemy. I feel as though this election was in the hands of some of the worst elements of our population, putting our future in the hands of ill-educated mobs and smirking, superior elitists who are more than happy to tell you how to live your life. And I don't know that after this election, we will ever be able to regain the ground we lose during the Obama presidency. Once you lock down (ie enslave) your voter base with freebies, welfare and handouts to over 50% of the population, how is anyone who wants fiscal responsibility, hard work and independence to overcome that majority? Who (besides conservatives) wants fishing lessons when the fish are being handed out for free, no labor required?

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

2. It scares me TO DEATH that the media has given Obama such a free pass. His whole presidency long. Usually the media watches our leaders and calls them on misbehaviors, flubs or questionable policies. Obama's had to deal with none of that. He can do whatever he wants, from telling marines to stand down in Benghazi while American lives were lost to running our economy into the ground, without anyone in the mainstream media looking too closely, so no mainstream voters hear about any of it. And it's getting worse. As a conservative, I feel as though my first amendment rights, and our national security, and our way of life, are being seriously threatened. I feel that my access to truth is severly limited. And to me, that's more important than whether or not the government's going to pay for my birth control. Seriously, women out there, come ON! Where are your priorities???

3. I hate how he divides us as a people. We were all hoping that having gotten over the race barrier, he would be able to bring people of all colors together. He blew that hope out of the water every time he opened his mouth on racial issues, from Treyvon Martin to the Boston professor/cop incident. He incites class hatred, racial hatred, hatred period. A scared, entitled, hating, dependent population is easy to control. Panem et circenses. Or, to translate, food stamps and satellite dishes.

I know there needs to be a social safety net in place for emergencies. It is a necessary and important service. However, I am against free, constant handouts and the government takeover of charity, and (until Christ comes) the concept of socialism for America. The current welfare system is corrupt, requires no accountability, lacks efficiency, creates victims, and robs the rest of us of the blessings and resonsibility of helping the poor through personal and religious initiative. Christ did not set up a government to take money from everyone and give it poor and needy - he did not even overthrow the brutal Roman invaders who had taken over Israel. He showed us how to give from our hearts if that's the kind of people we are, and if we're not, we'll pay for it later. It's called choice and accountability, something that liberal policies deny at every turn.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatreds.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

William J. H. Boetcker, 1916 (often attributed to Lincoln)

 

4. Goodbye Israel. Your days are so numbered. Hello nuclear Iran. And I bet Sharia law will be legally practiced in at least one place in the USA before 2016, like it is in parts of Europe. So freaking scary. You wanna talk about losing your rights, ladies? Look at Yemen, Iran, Saudi Arabia, all Obama's buddies in the Middle East. Great role models. Gee I can't wait until the right to stone your daughter for disobedience can be exercised. Won't that be a relief. And suring up our borders? Forget it - Obama made it clear what he thought about the Arizona ranchers who tried to defend their own homes against the human/drug smugglers. Obama is a miserable failure in foreign affairs on pretty much every account.

5. Since Obama has no agenda whatsoever to helping us unlock our own natural resources, they will continue to to untapped, leaving us to the mercy of those crazies in the middle east. Jobs will continue to be lost, businesses will leave our shores for other lands that have cheaper energy available, and our energy costs will skyrocket. I feel like buying a t-shirt that says "Don't Blame Me; I Voted for the Other Guy." Seriously. All those ignorant, or misguided, or visionless folks who voted for Obama have no idea what's coming their way because of who they just elected. I guess they're doing their part to bring about the end of the world a little sooner, but still,  I was hoping for something of a reprieve before we had to fight more of it.

I'm not the most eloquent person on the earth, and I don't always tactfully or accurately express my political rationale. But my passions run deep. And I am heartbroken for the future my children could have had. I mourn the future we are all now faced with. The tax rate. The entitlement mentality combined with a depressing lack of employment opportunities. The exorbitant cost of food and gas and power that will be normal for them. The shaky dollar (if it still exists). The lack of moral and ethical leadership. The Nanny State takeover of the family. The DMV-like hospitals they will be forced to visit as government panels decide their medical fates. I saw it every day in Ireland - dissatisfaction, anger, lack of motivation, bad (though hey, universal!) health care. As a whole, it was the most unhappy population I've ever seen. Yet that's where we are headed. That's what 51% of our population voted for yesterday.  Maybe that's where we're headed anyway because enough of our people want nothing more than a free ride. Advanced citizenship doesn't work that way, folks.

Romney could have made a difference. He's a fixer by nature who would have been able to cut spending, create jobs, and limit big government. He would have vetoed Obamacare (so unconstitutional!!!! stupid Justice Roberts) but worked with both sides to improve the insurance industry. He could have limited restrictions to encourage initiative, energy and job growth. He would have defended rather than apologized for the American way of life. He could have been the first person in the presidency that I have admired since the first Bush. Instead, we have the lying, smiling, socialist villain back in the White House for four more years. Yippideeday.

Life will go on. I know it will. I just now have to readjust my expectations as to the country I used to know, and what it will look like for my children, unless something drastic happens. I'm just mourning.

Ultimately, I know that I have a choice. I can choose to be miserable and depressed or I can move on. I will move on and try to think of the proactive stuff I can do to keep my family, church and community strong. After all,

"Your success as a family, our success as a society, depends not on what happens in the White House, but on what happens in your house" - James E. Faust

and


(my president didn't change today)
 

Sophie's Baptism

 Sophie was baptized on Saturday, November 3rd by her father, Gary Larsen at the Rexburg South stake center. It was an amazing, special weekend for which we have been preparing a long time. Not only did we have many of the people we love best come from all over to share this special day with Sophie, but she really was ready and prepared to be baptized. She is a very pure spirit, who's kindness springs from the goodness of her very loving heart. Her faith is simple but true, and when asked if she were ready to be baptized by Bishop Allen, she said, in her own sweet way, "of course!" I've rarely felt the spirit as strongly as I did when we were in the primary room during her confirmation; it was almost tangible. I might have caught the rustling of angels wings because I know they were there. Gary's prayer for her was very sweet and tender and eloquent. Sophie and her friends Charlotte and Brooke sang "I Like to Look for Rainbows" while Gram played the piano; Nana spoke on the Holy Ghost and how she got her testimony; Grandpa and Papa were baptismal witnesses, and Papa gave the closing prayer.  It was a wonderful, wonderful day.

I am very grateful, this month of Thanskgiving, that I had a husband who was willing an worthy to take part in this sacred ordinance. He and Sophie have always had a special bond, and it was so deeply touching to me to have them share this experience together this day.

 

Celebrating with cousins Abbey and Chris, his girlfriend Katie, and Uncle Ron

The lunch at the barn afterwards (oh how I love the barn!): soup by the aunts, salad and fruit dip by me and my mom, breadsticks by Brenda, and dessert by Sar and cousin Susan. Above is Aunt Diana, Savannah, Zach, Aunt Mary Kay, Papa, Susan, and Uncle Roger.

 Aunt Diana, Uncle Rog, Nana, Aunt Mary Kay

Sophie with her Grandpa (Larsen), currently undergoing his third month of chemo for his cancer. He was a trooper.

 Ha! You can't hide from the camera forever, Uncle Mike!

Dear friends Sar and Redge (aka Bishop Allen, if I can remember to call him that), and Stephanie Ricks. The book is Sophie's personal history which Nana has painstakingly collected for her over the years. Now I get to take over and make sure it is completed.

Oh how we love our Gram! They brought the dogs up too, so Auntie Bella got to play with Liesl, Scotty and Kenzie! And they all got to sleep with the kids in their room!

No get-together at the Larsen's is complete without a dance under the disco lights! I belive this was the Hokey Pokey - go Gram!

 Beloved, beloved people: Sophie with Papa, Nana and our 91 year-old Nanny, spry and lively as always.

After the party, Nana and Papa went home to rest with Nanny. We cleaned up and then went swimming at Gram and Grandpa's hotel, the AmericInn. Then we went to dinner at Applebees and to see Brave at the dollar theater. What a fun day! Dear people, my Sophie's baptism, good food, good company, lots of dogs and love and laughter and blessings...I've rarely had a better!

Halloween is Just a Big Picture Day

 I have mixed feelings about Halloween. As a kid I loved it, of course - the costumes, the candy, the adventure. As a mom, it's like four straight days dedicated to sugar. And more sugar. And then some candy, and then even MORE sugar! I try to make it fun for them and not be a kill-joy, and we had a great movie night with Bedknobs and Broomsticks, pumpkin carving, and Halloween mad libs at dinner. But seriously, what is the redeeming value of Halloween? Do the kids learn anything in particular? Well, we do have the "thou shalt be safe, stay in a group, and not steal anyone elses' candy" talk before the big night, but I don't really count that.

Scary decorations I just don't do... yet. That will probably change when I have teenagers and death and blood and guts are more on our minds, but for now, we stuck with some autumn colored flowers and some holly jolly pumpkins, like Gary's below:

(Yes, it's The Scream by Edvard Munch. You should have seen it while it was lit - gorgeous! Gar outdid himself. I think it's fairly appropriate subject matter considering his stress level right now, trying to finish the PhD dissertation this year and Dance Alliance coming up in the fall... we all feel a bit like screaming!)

Even Bella got in the mood. Though she could not understand why we made her dress up like, of all things, a CAT!

 Senorita Maggie, in the dress we got her in Barcelona this summer.

 Sophie and her darling second grade teacher Mrs. Dennis.

I helped out in both Sophie's and Spencer's class parties (but only had my camera for Sophie's). Here is Sophie at her school costume parade. She's the little witch on the left. Spencer was a knight, as usual, with about three different swords tucked into sundry parts of his costume.

 

We did stations with crafts (make your own skeleton), games (roll the pumpkin and toss the ball into the Halloween cup) and bag decorating. I helped with the treats, and I think I get extra Good Mom points with my awesome little apple monsters, below. Rawr!

Hyrum with his skeleton - this was my station. We liked adding the extra blood and guts to their creations. It is Halloween, after all!

The night before Halloween our ward did a trunk or treat with a chili and cornbread dinner, costume parade, and pumpkin carving contest. Gary's pumpkin won a prize, of course, 'cause it was so awesome. Then we went out the the cars all lined up in the church parking lot where the kids proceeded to fill their buckets every two feet with every kind of cavity-inducing goodie imaginable. I can her me calling the dentist now...

And the big night itself. Gary was his Used Car Salesman alter ego, Sophie was her witch, Spence a knight, me a Southern Belle (thanks Festival team for the costume) and Maggie was a Spanish dancer. Until the sugar high from her school party wore off and she had a meltdown, after which she changed into a princess dress.

 

Setting out on the big adventure! Daddy even came home early to take the kids around. Maggie eventually ended up at Eliza Hibbards house where she jumped the family ship to complete the rounds with friends instead. It was bound to happen someday - stop growing up, Mags! ;-)

 

Sophie's Big 8th Birthday!

Our dear Sophie just turned 8, a special birthday for us Mormon because we believe that when a child turns 8 years old, they have reached the age of accountability and can therefore choose for themselves if they want to be baptized into our church. Sophie has made that decision, and we are so proud of her. At 8 years old, Sophie is kind, fun, intelligent, organized, hard working, loving, and jolly. She has continued to be a healer in many ways, and is the first person to jump to the rescue when someone needs an ice pack or band aid or hug. Her teachers always ADORE her for being obedient, helpful, and self-motivated in class. In fact, at parent teacher conference, her teacher Mrs. Dennis told us that she wishes she could put a picture of Sophie on the front board so she could point to it and say, "that is who you want to be like, kids!" She is cheerful and contented and a true joy to be around. We love our little Tootie so much!

She wanted a Halloween Costume Party theme, so that's what we went with for the cake and the dress code. Since the barn can hold a million people we went ahead and invited almost everyone she knows; at one time I think we had about 34 kids out there. But you throw on some music and the disco lights, and entertaining the herds is a piece of cake. Literally and figuratively!

 

 Here's Sophie with special pals Hyrum, Charlotte and Braelyn, just before blowing out her chandelier candles.

 Opening presents in the special "birthday chair" we inherited from the Fransons.

Noah Goodnough in full Kiss attire

We danced with the disco lights, played sweep the balloon and Haunted Musical Chairs, did the Monster Mash, and had a ball. Happy birthday my little Tootles!

Fall Fun

Celebrating Spencer's soccer team of Spence, Ammon, Ben, Ryder and Zane. With one more season under their belt, they are really starting to play well together! Spencer has a great sense of footwork - not completely surprising, considering we're all cloggers around here. But he made some pretty sophisticated plays, and scored lots for his team - even 7 goals in one game once! We also made sure we gave him props for the "assists" though - don't want a little diva on our hands who doesn't know how to work with the team.

Us celebrating with the Allens at Costa Vida after the kids' last soccer game. This is of Sophie and Hyrum... we really want them to get married someday so we're taking pictures now to put in their wedding video. Can't be too prepared.

 

 Bella and Snickers enjoying the last fall sunshine before...

 ...our first snow! This is noon...

 ... this is 1:00 PM...

 ... and this is 5:00 PM. Welcome to Idaho!

Climbing the walls already Spence? We still have five more months of this!!! ;-)

Maggie's Nightmare

The other day, Maggie came in to me in the middle of the night. "Mom, I just had a terrible nightmare! I dreamed I got a C-  in Language Arts!" She was absolutely terrified.

I hugged her and cuddled her for a minute before tucking her back in her bed.

She is her mother's daughter!